Past events 2021-2023

Mouradian Foundation Political Economy Seminar with Daniel Chandler

15 May 2023

"What would a fair society look like?"

In this talk, Daniel Chandler will explore how Rawls’s ideas can help us transform our societies for the better, drawing on his recent book, Free and Equal.

Mouradian Foundation - CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Tommaso Monacelli

30 March 2023

"Fiscal Rules in Europe: Back to the Future"

After the Covid crisis, the EU is approaching a critical juncture in redesigning its fiscal architecture. Going back is unfeasible, going forward is paved with uncertainty. Tommaso will discuss the main challenges ahead, as regards the proposals for a more centralized European fiscal policy, policies of debt mutualization and a greater degree of fiscal union.

Mouradian Foundation - CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Philipp Schnabl

02 March 2023

"Monetary Policy and Bank Balance Sheets"

Philipp Schnabl will discuss how the balance sheets of US banks have evolved over the past three years, including their rapid increase in size during the pandemic followed by the sharp contraction in the last 12 months, as well as the change in the composition of assets. Dr Schnabl will also discuss how banks price deposits, and how this affects their investment policies.

Mouradian Foundation Political Economy Seminar with Martin Wolf

08 February 2023

"The crisis of democratic capitalism"

Democracy and capitalism are the political and economic 'operating systems' of today's high-income democracies. But how stable is the relationship between them? The answer is 'not very', since it requires a separation of power from wealth inconsistent with almost all historical experience. In his new book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Martin Wolf argues that this complex system can best be described as a marriage of 'complementary opposites'. The book analyses how this marriage happened, why it is fragile and how economic and political changes have undermined it. It concludes by asking what needs to be done in response to developments that threaten the survival of liberal democracy itself.

Mouradian Foundation Political Economy Seminar with Paul Tucker

17 January 2023

"Global Discord: values and power in a fractured world order"

As outlined in his new book, democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states entangling much of public policy with global security issues. He will lay out some principles for a sustainable system of international cooperation, showing how democracies can deal with China and other illiberal states without sacrificing their deepest political values. Examples will be drawn from the international monetary order, including the role of the US dollar, trade and investment regimes, and the financial system. The approach takes its inspiration from David Hume rather than the standard International Relations menu of Hobbes, Kant, or Grotius, so that each of power, norms and material interests matter. After his opening remarks, our panel will engage in a discussion with Paul and each other, and questions from the audience.

Mouradian Foundation - CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Francesco Bianchi

30 November 2022

"Monetary: Fiscal policy interaction and post pandemic inflation"

The post pandemic spur of inflation has caught many by surprise. We argue that part of the increase in inflation had a fiscal nature. This requires changes both on the monetary and fiscal side, especially considering the new geopolitical environment

Mouradian Foundation - CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Sir Charlie Bean

10 November 2022

"Monetary: the UK gilt markets"

Discussion about what happened in the UK gilt markets last month and what it implies for fiscal policy in the UK moving forward.

Mouradian Foundation-CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Betsey Stevenson

28 April 2022

"Tight labour markets in the pandemic recovery "

While GDP has fully recovered, the labor market has not. In the United States there are 1.6 million fewer jobs as of the end of the first quarter of 2022 and the employment to population ratio remains 1.1 percentage points below its pandemic level. And yet job openings are at a measured high, with companies posting to fill more than 11 million job openings. This is more than three times the number of job openings at a similar stage in the recovery from the 2008 recession and roughly 50% more than the number of job openings available at the start of the pandemic. Will workers return to the labor market to fill these openings? I explore how labor supply and labor demand are impacting the unusual labor market recovery focusing on two fundamental shifts in the U.S. economy: the shift to a largely service sector based economy and the shift toward women as equal players in the labor market.

Mouradian Foundation - CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with John B Taylor

31 March 2022

The Need for a Modern and Consistent Monetary Policy Framework

The move toward monetary policy rules at the Fed was proceeding well under Janet Yellen and Jay Powell, who said, "I find these rule prescriptions helpful." But then the pandemic hit, the move was interrupted, and the Fed's February 25, 2022 Monetary Policy Report omitted any mention of policy rules. A big gap between the rules-based policy and the actions of the Fed was created. But recently Powell reported about rules at U.S. House and Senate hearings that "We'll have it in the next one" or "We'll bring them back for the July" though changes have not yet been seen in actual monetary policy. So the Fed has gotten behind the curve, even when you take account of international developments in Ukraine.

Mouradian Foundation-CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with William English

3 March 2022

"The Case for Caution: Why the Fed Won't Rush to Reduce the Balance Sheet"

With a strong economic recovery and disruptions to supply chains boosting inflation to levels not seen for four decades, the Federal Reserve has shifted rapidly toward a tightening of monetary policy. While there is general agreement that the Fed will need to raise its short-term interest-rate target - perhaps steeply - this year, there is less agreement on what the Fed will do to reduce the size of its nearly $9 trillion balance sheet. When the Fed began reducing the size of its balance sheet in 2017, it moved gradually and with plenty of advance notice, allowing securities to roll off as they matured, but avoiding outright sales. Some commentators have suggested that this time will be different, with the Fed acting quickly to shrink its securities holdings, including through substantial sales. However, the arguments that led the Fed to move gradually last time are still persuasive, and the Fed is likely to follow a broadly similar approach this time.

Mouradian Foundation Political Economy Seminar with Markus Brunnermeier

25 November 2021

"The resilient society"

When the Covid-19 pandemic first began, he organized a series of webinars on the crisis to provide real-time insights from the field on how to best manage the crisis. Fifteen months later, he has turned many of those insights into a book that distills important learnings from many top economists, thought leaders, historians, and key policymakers, and shares his own perspective on the economic challenges we face moving forward.

Mouradian Foundation-CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Glenn Hubbard

11 November 2021

"The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009"

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009, the disruptions in financial markets in March 2020 due to COVID and Next Steps in Improving Financial Stability.

Mouradian Foundation-CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Hyun Song Shin

28 October 2021

"The BIS Annual Economic Report, Chapter III"

Hyun Song will take stock of the public policy case for the issuance of a retail CBDC and outline several design choices that highlight the tradeoffs involved.

Mouradian Foundation Political Economy Seminar with Gillian Tett

14 October 2021

"Anthro Vision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life"

The book is a plea to those of us who may be unfamiliar with her academic discipline to think more like an anthropologist. Anthro-Vision is neatly divided into three parts. The first, Making the 'Strange' Familiar, offers the sorts of observations you might expect to come from an anthropologist interested in how societies function. Tett writes about the failures of what may loosely be described as "white western thinking" in other parts of the world.

Mouradian Foundation Political Economy Seminar with Margaret Levi and Federica Carugati

20 July 2021

Margaret Levi is Director, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences (CASBS), Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, and Federica Carugati, a Lecturer in History and Political Economy at King's College. Carugati and Levi's book, A Moral Political Economy, "argues that economies - and the government institutions that support them - reflect a moral and political choice, a choice we can make and remake. The challenges of today reveal the need to redesign our social, economic, and governing institutions based on assumptions about humans as social beings rather than narrow self-serving individualists."

Mouradian Foundation Political Economy Seminar with Adrian Wooldridge

06 June 2021

"The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World"

The Aristocracy of Talent provides an important and needed corrective to contemporary critiques of meritocracy. It puts meritocracy in an illuminating historical and cross-cultural perspective that shows how crucial the judgment of people by their talents rather than their bloodlines or connections has been to creating the modern world.

Mouradian Foundation-CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Lucrezia Reichlin

06 May 2021

"The future of monetary policy. Some lessons from the European monetary union."

It was a policy talk, and the discussion was on policy options and choices, not on model assumptions or estimator properties. But, of course the policy points can be informed by multiple pieces of research, and your audience is as sophisticated as it gets.

Mouradian Foundation Political Economy Seminar with Peter Boettke

05 May 2021

Peter Boettke, University Professor of Economics and Philosophy and Director of the F.A. Hayek Programme for Advance Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at George Mason University, will introduce his new book entitled "The Struggle for a Better World".

Mouradian Foundation-CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with Jason Furman

01 April 2021

"Warm, Hot or Scaling: The Outlook for the US Economy"

He discussed the outlook for the US economy with a focus on fiscal policy, the question of whether the debt path is sustainable, and its implications for the US and global economy.

Mouradian Foundation-CFM Macroeconomic Policy Seminar with John Cochrane

04 March 2021

"Debt and Inflation"

The talk was based on "r<g", "low-interest rates and government debt," and "challenges for central banks."